Posted on 07/19/2023 3:58:04 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A dark sense of humor doesn't make you a bad person—just a smart one
A man walks into a rooftop bar and takes a seat next to another guy. “What are you drinking?” he asks the guy.
“Magic beer,” the guy says.
“Oh, yeah? What’s so magical about it?”
Then the guy shows him: He swigs some beer, dives off the roof, flies around the building, then finally returns to his seat with a triumphant smile.
“Amazing!” the man says. “Lemme try some of that!” The man grabs the beer. He downs it, leaps off the roof—and plummets 15 stories to the ground.
The bartender shakes his head. “You know, you’re a real jerk when you’re drunk, Superman.”
Let’s ignore for a moment whether or not that poor rube survived his fall (if it makes you feel better, let’s say Trampoline Man was waiting for him on the ground). The real question is: Do you find dark jokes like this one funny? Sick? Maybe a little of both? Or do you prefer to stick to short jokes that are a little more wholesome?
What is a dark sense of humor?
If you laughed at that Superman joke, you definitely have a dark sense of humor. But what is dark humor, exactly? Psychologists have defined it as “humor that treats sinister subjects like death, disease, deformity, handicap or warfare with bitter amusement and presents such tragic, distressing or morbid topics in humorous terms.” If your reaction to those kinds of jokes is “that’s terrible, but I laughed,” then you enjoy dark humor. If you find yourself searching “dark humor meaning” to understand why people find the joke funny, or you react negatively to making light of difficult topics, then dark humor probably isn’t for you.
Does a dark sense of humor mean you’re smart?
According to a study published in the journal Cognitive Processing, your reaction to dark humor could indicate your intelligence. In the paper, a team of psychologists concludes that people who appreciate dark humor may have higher IQs, show lower aggression and resist negative feelings more effectively than people who turn up their noses at it. MOR To test this correlation between a dark sense of humor and intellect, researchers had 156 male and female participants read 12 bleak cartoons from The Black Book by German cartoonist Uli Stein. (One of them, which paraphrases a classic joke, shows a mortician reaching deep into a cadaver as a nurse muses, “The autopsy is finished; he is only looking for his wrist watch.”) Participants indicated whether they understood each joke and whether they found it funny, then took some basic IQ tests and answered questionnaires about their mood, aggressive tendencies and educational background.
What did the study on a dark sense of humor find? The results about a dark sense of humor were remarkably consistent: Participants who both comprehended and enjoyed the dark humor jokes showed higher IQs, and reported less aggressive tendencies, than those who did not. Incidentally, the participants who least liked the humor showed the highest levels of aggression and the worst moods of the bunch. The latter point makes sense when you consider the widely studied health benefits of laughter and smiling; if you aren’t able to greet negativity with playful optimism, of course you will feel worse.
But what about the link to intelligence? According to the researchers, processing dark humor jokes takes a bit more mental gymnastics than, say, processing a knock-knock joke—it’s “a complex information-processing task” that requires parsing multiple layers of meaning, while creating a bit of emotional distance from the content so that it registers as benign instead of hostile. That emotional maneuvering is what sets dark humor jokes apart from, say, puns, which literally pit your brain’s right and left hemispheres against each other as you process a single word’s multiple meanings but usually don’t force you out of your emotional comfort zone. Tina Fey sums up the difference pretty well: “If you want to make an audience laugh, you dress a man up like an old lady and push her down the stairs. If you want to make comedy writers laugh, you push an actual old lady down the stairs.”
The takeaway: Pretty much any joke that relies on wordplay will put your brain to work—dark humor jokes just require a bit more emotional control to earn a laugh. Give your brain a spin with these jokes proven to make anyone sound smart, or, if you do want to test your black humor cognizance, consider the following dark riddles from the Reader’s Digest comedy crypt to exercise your hardened funny bone.
“‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I apologize’ mean the same thing. Except at a funeral.” —Demetri Martin
Q: What has four legs and one arm? A: A happy pit bull.
“Cats have nine lives. Makes them ideal for experimentation.” —Jimmy Carr
Q: Why don’t cannibals eat clowns? A: Because they taste funny.
“I have a vest. If I had my arms cut off, it would be a jacket.” —Mitch Hedberg
Q: What did Kermit the frog say at Jim Henson’s funeral? A: Nothing.
“If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.” —Steven Wright
Next, here are some jokes research proved to be funny.
I wonder if they did the liberal/conservative split on reactions.
This goes a long way to explain why woketards are such humorless hypersensitive snowflakes.
A variation of the three wishes spoil-sport joke:
A paralegal, an associate, and a partner of a prestigious law firm are walking through a city park and they find an antique oil lamp.
They rub it and a Genie comes out in a puff of smoke.
The Genie says, “I usually only grant three wishes, so I’ll give each of you one.”
“Me first!” says the paralegal. “I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat with Tom Cruise.”
Poof! She’s gone.
“Me next!” says the associate. “I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with a professional hula dancer on one side and a Mai Tai on the other.”
Poof! He’s gone.
“You’re next,” the Genie says to the partner.
The partner says: “I want those two back in the office after lunch.”
I’ve got that T shirt. The hilarious thing is all the hippie-dippy people around here salivate with the image of Stalin then questioning at the dark words.
lol...
A German factory worker was executed for telling this joke.
“Hitler and Goring are standing atop the Berlin radio tower. Hitler says he wants to do something to put a smile on Berliners’ faces. So Goring says: ‘Why don’t you jump?’”
I love dark humor. Back on March 25, 2006, Senator Robert Byrd’s wife Emma died. Somebody on FR posted a thread about it. My comment on the thread was that she was the first documented case in America of death by Byrd Flu. And even back then, someone on FR saw fit to complain about my comment, and they had the moderators remove it. I think it was the first comment of mine that had been removed since I’d joined in Nov 28, 1997.
My sister and her son used to play a game on their phones called “Dead Babies”.
They would be laughing their asses off.
Other folks no so much.
What is the name of a guy with no arms or legs in the pool?
What is the name of a guy with no arms or legs in a pile of leaves?
What is the name of a guy with no arms or legs on a wall.
What is the name of a guy with no arms or legs at your door?
Is that kinda dark?
5.56mm
I’d listen to Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor, George Carlin. I don’t know how many times I nearly drove off the road on my way to school LMAO listening to Don Imus. Not to mention the Dean Martin Roasts. I’ve heard every conceivable group made fun of. Wokies get offended by dark humor? I get offended by their 🐂💩.
At one time the Celtics were thought to be a racist organization, then they became unBiased. Some of you will need to look that one up.
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I just recently discovered Jimmy Carr. He can be pretty crude at times but pretty funny at other times.
What do you call a man with no legs and no arms lying in the hall?
Mat.
What do you call a man with no legs and no arms who falls off the back of a motorboat?
Bob.
What do you call a dog with no legs?
It doesn’t matter. He’s not going to come to you.
Bob, ?????, Art and Matt.
Seriously never heard the pile of leaves one.
How many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman?
.
.
Zero.
One of my kids came back from 6th grade with that joke (learning about the famine). I cracked up.
What’s green and red, and goes 100 mph?
A frog in a blender!
Cigarette... because you can take him out for a drag.
Russell.
5.56mm
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